There is a widespread, though incomplete,
assumption that the main difficulties migrant workers have is with their
employers. That is only partly true. In analyzing the problems of migrant
workers it is necessary to look at the phenomenon at four levels: in the
relationship between migrant workers and the agencies importing them to
Lebanon; in that between migrant workers and their employers; in that between
migrant workers and the Lebanese state; and in relation to the problems they
face in Lebanese society. Each relationship has its peculiarity, often with
profound implications for human rights. Anecdotal material on the problems
facing migrant workers, in particular those from non-Arab countries in Asia and
Africa, is vast, the result of a growing realization in Lebanon that their
predicament in the country is far from satisfactory.

It is non-Arab Afro-Asian migrant workers who
arrive in Lebanon by way of employment agencies, and most come as domestic
workers. That is because the agencies, among their several functions, serve as
indispensable links with those faraway African and Asian countries whose
migrant workers would not otherwise find it easy, or even possible, to enter
Lebanon. Historically, the first non-Arab Afro-Asian domestics to arrive
in Lebanon were Sri Lankans and Filipinos. However, in the past seven years
Lebanese employment agencies have widened their scope of operations to include
Madagascar and Ethiopia.[1] Of those from African countries, only the
Ethiopians, however, arrive through agencies: Sudanese and West Africans
generally arrive alone, or are hired directly by employers. While many
agencies have developed a bad reputation, two things must be kept in mind:
first, that several countries, including Sri Lanka, the Philippines, and, more
recently, Ethiopia, have started reforming the process of sending workers to
Lebanon.[2] This has meant, at home, enforcing procedures to ensure that abuse
is kept to a minimum, whether in the formulation of contracts or, even, in the
choice of an employer. Though the we will describe the continuing problems of
migrant workers, we must keep in mind that the process is a dynamic one. Both
Lebanon and countries sending migrant workers are seeking out ways to more
adequately regulate the situation of migrants, as it is to their mutual
advantage. And second - and conversely - it should be mentioned that the
problems linked to migrant workers, while mainly provoked in Lebanon, have
their roots in countries from where migrant workers originate. In other words,
many of the more abusive networks sending workers to Lebanon are the fruit of a
collaboration between Lebanese businessmen and locals. This is hardly to
diminish the responsibility of the Lebanese agencies, but to share this
responsibility somewhat. It is important to realize that any reform of the
migration process involves measures that must be taken both in the workers'
country of origin as well as in Lebanon. As indicated above, such a process has
already begun in some countries. Given their indispensability, the agencies
have power over both employers and workers, allowing them to elicit very high
rates from the former, while insuring, on behalf of employers, that the workers
are provided with a bare minimum. Significantly, the activities of agencies go
largely unregulated. The fact that the agencies were mostly established during
the war years, when state authority was minimal, made easier the absence of
state supervision over their affairs once the war ended. Nor has the suspected
relationship between some agencies and influential political figures made it
easy to impose such a supervisory authority. That is why, in many respects, it
is the agencies who derive the greatest advantage from the quadrilateral
relationship between them, migrant workers, employers, and the state. The
procedure for an agency's bringing a non-Arab African or Asian worker to
Lebanon is relatively simple, if often duplicitous. The fate of an average Sri
Lankan female domestic well illustrates the process.[3] Local agents in Sri
Lanka, with ties to a Lebanese agency, will hire a worker after making her sign
a contract, probably in English, before her departure. This will come after an
exchange of money, since the worker is required to pay a fee to be selected.
This may be in the range of $500, which is very high for most potential
workers. Some are obliged to borrow the money, "incurring a debt, which, in the
future, may prevent them from returning to their country if their Lebanese
employer denies them their wages."[4] In Lebanon, meanwhile, future
employers are also paying money, this time to the import agency. At a rate of
between $1,000 and $3,000 - depending on nation of origin - employers 'reserve'
a migrant worker, who will earn a salary ranging between roughly $150 and $300.
The migrant worker usually has no say in this, as her salary is agreed between
the agency and the employer. The figures fluctuate for different nationalities:
A Filipino domestic worker may 'cost' $3,000, while those from Madagascar or
Ethiopia come cheaper at between $1,000 and $1,500. Upon arrival in
Lebanon, the migrant domestic worker generally remains under the responsibility
of the agency for a period of three months. This time period is stipulated in a
second contract, usually written in Arabic, that the migrant is made to sign
upon arrival in Lebanon. The second contract is usually more stringent than the
first which the worker signed in his or her home country. This abusive practice
is made easier by the ignorance of the migrant worker. Workers may find that
the second contract compels them to work more years than initially believed,
and at a lower monthly salary. Some embassies have taken some precautions
against the procedure, by insisting that local contracts be approved by them.
Yet as an individual familiar with the issue suggested, embassies do not
implement the practice consistently.[5] Nor are they particularly keen to
complicate a process from which their host country derives economic
advantage. While migrant domestic workers are the responsibility of the
local agency for their first few months in Lebanon, they are taken in hand by
their employers upon their arrival in Beirut. However, the fact that the agency
paid to bring the workers to Lebanon and is initially accountable for them,
means that it has a vested interest in insuring that there are no problems
between employee and employer. This usually means that in case of a problem
agencies, either directly or through encouragement of the employer, put
pressure on the weaker party - the migrant worker. This leads to much potential
abuse, which we will discuss later in the section on relations between migrant
workers and employers. Such behavior is often encouraged by the agencies, who
have no interest in siding with the worker: it is, after all, the employers who
pay the bulk of agencies' fees. The relationship between employment
agencies and the embassies or honorary consulates representing countries from
which migrant workers originate is often an ambiguous one. It is fair to say
that, by and large, foreign embassies are timid when it comes to challenging
the Lebanese authorities, agencies, or employers for mistreatment of their
nationals who are workers. One overriding reason for this is that the workers
are a source of much-needed hard currency for their home countries, and the
embassies are unwilling to jeopardize what is, in the end, a financially
advantageous situation.[6] Moreover, as one observer remarked, there is often a
class difference between embassy personnel and local migrant nationals. This
makes it unlikely that diplomats will endanger their career prospects by
picking a fight with the Lebanese over domestic workers. Often, local
honorary consuls have a close relationship with employment agencies. Two of the
countries sending large contingents of migrant workers to Lebanon - the
Philippines and Sri Lanka - opened embassies relatively late after the end of
the war: the Philippines in November 1996 and Sri Lanka in early 1998. Prior to
this, they were represented by locals. Yet even once they are opened, embassies
do not invariably side with their nationals. In 1998, for example, Filipinos
complained that their embassy was actually supporting employment agencies
against them.[7] At other times, honorary consuls have sought to benefit
financially from migrant workers. In the case of Sri Lanka, for example, the
country's honorary consul (before the embassy's opening) was a Lebanese man
involved in the 'importation' of migrant workers.[8] This always made it
unlikely that he would genuinely represent the interests of Sri Lankan
nationals. Indeed, the contrary was true: there was much money to be made from
the ill-treatment of migrants. It was the honorary consul who, for a high fee,
delivered passports to nationals who had had their documents illegally
confiscated. Indeed, this was one reason - in addition to human rights abuses -
why the Sri Lankan government, under pressure from its community in Lebanon,
decided to open an embassy in the first place. The Sri Lanka embassy has
sought to impose order on contracts between employees and agencies. For
example, the embassy issues a document legally binding the employee, the
agency, and the employer, and is reportedly more willing to repatriate
employees if the contract is breached.[9] The embassy has reportedly also taken
measures to make the restitution of lost passports easier. Major problems
remain, however: the most obvious is that many Sri Lankans work illegally,
without contracts. Therefore the embassy's control over contract stipulations
is all but irrelevant. Nor are the controls it imposes mandatory. Complicating
matters is the frequent reluctance of the Lebanese authorities to look more
closely into cases of physical mistreatment. As one human rights activist put
it: "An embassy will do nothing in a country where the law does not protect
people."[10]

Hemalatha Mendis is a Sri Lankan domestic
worker whose plight was vividly described by a reporter for the Daily Star,
Lebanon's English-language daily newspaper. The incident perfectly encapsulated
the often convoluted relationship between domestic worker, employment agency,
employer, and the Sri Lankan embassy.[11] In early July 1999, the reporter
showed officials at the Sri Lankan embassy in Beirut photographs she had
received of a young girl with her thighs, arms, and face bruised. The
photographs were of one Hemaltha Mendis, and were taken as evidence by a Sri
Lankan housekeeper who worked next door to her. Mendis' injuries were the
result of beatings she received when she was returned to a recruiting agency by
her employer. Apparently, the employer, a woman who lived on the campus of the
American University of Beirut, was unhappy with Mendis' performance and took
her to the agency to be taught a lesson. The irony is that Mendis, according to
her testimony, often worked from 6:00 AM until midnight. The unidentified owner
of the agency punished Mendis by beating her with a stick on her back, arms,
and legs. He then returned her to the employer. This did not put an end to
the abuse at home, however. Mendis' employer allegedly continued to beat her,
and locked her in a dark room for a time. Several weeks later, the employer had
to travel and decided to 'impound' Mendis at the agency for the duration. There
she lived in a room crowded with twenty other domestic workers. Meanwhile, the
agency owner continued to beat the women. This continued until Haddad appeared
at the agency accompanied by Sri Lankan embassy officials asking for Mendis.
Haddad saw a woman cleaning the floor and immediately identified her as Mendis,
the woman in the photographs taken by the housekeeper. Mendis was quickly
spirited away, and a row ensued as the agency's personnel sought to throw
Haddad and the Sri Lankan diplomats out. The embassy complained to the
Lebanese foreign ministry, but received no response. The Daily Star decided to
publish the photographs of the bruised Mendis. This prompted the agency to
quietly drop her off at the Sri Lanka embassy, apparently to avoid further
adverse publicity. The story did not end there, however: the agency owner
reportedly showed up at the embassy soon afterwards to reclaim Mendis. Embassy
officials rebuffed him. The incident provides a rather alarming view of the
power of the agencies. For one thing, the Lebanese foreign ministry did not
even bother to respond to what was clearly the violation of the rights of a
foreign national. One doubts that a similar level of unconcern would be shown
for a citizen of the United States or of a Western European country. In this
particular case, Sri Lankan officials did make it a point to help the migrant
worker, although one has a hunch that this was the result of two things: the
fact that photographic evidence existed, and the fact that the evidence was
brought by a local newspaper which was willing to make a fuss over the
incident. What was equally obvious was the level of wanton cruelty of the
agency personnel. The repeated beatings of Mendis and her fellow domestic
workers was almost pathological, going well beyond the standard abuse prevalent
in work conditions. If Mendis' account was true, and there is no reason to
doubt it, the pattern of mistreatment, in its recurrence, revealed that
violence was being used as a means of imposing discipline. This is reminiscent
of conditions in the more disreputable penal systems, where the objective is to
dismantle any remnants of self-worth. Finally, the incident showed the
particularly unhealthy relationship between the agency and the employer.
According to Mendis, the employer sought the assistance of the agency to punish
her for alleged 'misbehavior'. That would mean that the agency, at least the
one in question, took on the role of final disciplining authority, something
wholly unlawful. At the same time, the employer also saw the agency as
something tantamount to a dog pound - a place where she could keep her maid
until she returned from a trip. This, naturally, goes to the heart of the
relationship between employer and employee (of which more below), but also
exposes how agencies can be perceived as allies by abusive employers. The
irony, of course, is that it is the agencies which benefit most from a
financial transaction - the placement of domestics - that is decidedly to the
disadvantage of employers.

Upon arrival in Lebanon, a migrant worker's
principal relationship is with the employer. Whether one comes as a domestic,
as a construction worker, or as someone employed in the myriad odd jobs that
migrant workers are employed in, it is almost always the employer who
determines salary, the quality of work conditions, working hours, and a variety
of other details affecting the everyday standards of an employee's living
conditions. In other words, whether the migrant worker is in Lebanon legally or
not, his or her status often is not defined by objective criteria, which the
state must impose. The lot of migrant workers is usually decided by the
employer, who may treat his workers well or, alternatively, make their life
unbearable. In what follows, we will look at the employer-employee
relationship in the two primary types of employment situations existing in
Lebanon: That where a migrant worker is employed legally; and that where he or
she is employed illegally. Migrant workers who are in Lebanon illegally may
have initially arrived in the country legally, with a contract guaranteed by a
Lebanese employer. On the other hand, even illegal migrants can agree to a
simple written contract with an employer, since the notary public who notarizes
the agreement will assume that it is needed to gain a work permit. As one will
quickly see, however, there is considerable overlap between the two groups in
terms of problems they face with employers. Most migrant workers who
arrive in Lebanon to work legally come as domestics, through an agency. Indeed,
their contract is what allows the state to authorize their legal residency in
Lebanon. As shown above in our discussion of agencies, the nature of the new
relationship upon the worker's arrival plays to her or his disfavor. Three
months after a domestic's arrival in Lebanon, responsibility reverts to the
employer. Because employers have paid so high a fee to the employment agency,
they are inclined to take measures - most of them illegal - to ensure that they
do not lose out on their investment. In this they are encouraged by the
agencies as they were, in the past, by civil servants, in particular security
personnel at the airport. Among these steps are confiscation of the migrant
worker's passport, restriction on freedom of movement - some migrant domestics
are locked indoors by employers - and illicit measures affecting salaries.
Confiscation of a passport or other identity document is prohibited by Lebanese
law and by the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All
Migrant Workers and their Families. The measure has two major objectives.
First, it deters workers from running away from a place of employment, since
the obtainment of a new passport may cost a great deal of money - the Lebanese
authorities demand $900 for the issue of a new passport.[12] Moreover, workers
without identity papers have difficulty finding new employment, illegal or not,
given that many employers are inclined to confiscate personal documents.
Second, without a passport migrant workers are unable to leave Lebanon. That
is, unless, they can find the necessary funds to purchase a new passport.
However, lately the Lebanese authorities have tightened even this loophole,
insisting that migrant workers who wish to leave Lebanon obtain a release
document signed by their employer. The confiscation of passports or other
identity documents is part of a larger problem faced by domestic migrant
workers: limitations on freedom of movement. This can mean anything from being
locked indoors to being obliged to work long hours - effectively limiting a
worker's right to engage in a whole series of other activities. The fact that
an employee is locked indoors and prevented from circulating freely is a
byproduct of ambient mistrust existing between employer and employee. Abusive
employers adhere to a principle that if domestics are free to move around, they
will find it easy to escape the place of employment in case of theft. Yet not
only are limitations on freedom of movement illegal, they violate the
contractual relationship between employer and employee: running away from a
home is not forbidden; legally it is tantamount to a breach of contract, which
requires only that the injured party receive adequate compensation.[13]
Implicit, however, is another motive: the ability, and freedom, to thoroughly
control another human being. The philosophical implications of this are
obvious. But even at a more mundane level, such control is seen as beneficial
because the employer believes that it might avert a series of potential
personal problems affecting the employee. In other words, some of the more
abusive employers seek to undermine anything approaching an identity on the
part of employees. The fact that such behavior may be tantamount to slavery is
usually ignored. The absence of a state-enforced right to free time often
makes contractual workers, particularly domestics, dependent on the whims of
their employers as regards their schedules. As noted earlier, many migrant
domestics are compelled to sign a disadvantageous contract upon their arrival
in Lebanon. Often, the contract alters an initial contract, or an initial
promise, for numbers of days off per week. Migrant workers may find that they
suddenly have only one day off, or none at all. At the same time, migrant
workers may be forced to work for long hours without any form of financial
compensation. Press reports of domestics being made to work for up to eighteen
hours are common. Both of these abuses - the absence of days off and long
working hours - contradict the principles embodied in Article 25 of the
International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant
Workers, which outlines equality of treatment in work between migrant workers
and nationals.[14] The fact that a majority of migrant non-domestic workers
are males changes their conditions of living in some respects. This is not
invariably the case, however, especially if the worker entered Lebanon
illegally, which provides an employer with considerable leverage over him or
her. This leverage often makes unnecessary the confiscation of documents, since
an illegal migrant worker can easily be denounced in case of disagreement with
an employer. At the same time, employers tend not to invest in manual or petty
laborers as do families in domestics, which limits somewhat the restrictive
measures adopted to insure that their investment is not lost. While this
appears to suggest more freedom for non-domestic workers, the reality may be
quite different. Just as a well-treated non-Arab Afro-Asian domestic may have
wide latitude to do what he or she pleases, within reasonable limits, manual
laborers, especially those from Arab countries such as Syria or Egypt, may find
themselves working long hours in conditions that are barely acceptable. A major
problem faced by many manual workers, and those working in petty jobs, is
immoderate work conditions. Often, such workers - for example construction
workers or gas station attendants - will be on the job from very early morning
until the end of the day, or when the establishment closes in the late evening.
They will generally get one day off a week, usually on Sunday, and even this
may vary. In exchange, they will be paid a minimal wage, well below what they
are entitled to, given the long hours they put into their work. In every way,
then, migrant workers can be squeezed to the maximum as regards their time,
with no impetus for employers to pay overtime. As noted above, the
confiscation of documents and the excessive control over an employee's
movements and schedule are often implicitly justified by employers as necessary
to insure that their investment in a migrant worker is maximized. Another
similar mode of behavior, justified along the same lines, is to limit or
control an employee's salary. Salaries can easily be lowered, since they are
generally negotiated between an agency and the employer, who can finalize
details in a contract the employee is compelled to sign and usually cannot
understand. Additionally, agencies will advise employers to place the
employee's salary in an account in the employer's name. Both measures are
equivalent to denying an employee access to his or her lawful earnings. It
also, incidentally, denies the employee the funds to pay for a wide variety of
activities including leisure activities. Reports in the Lebanese press
have also pointed to other types of abuse: For example, some employers have
obliged their employees to live in humiliating conditions, with domestics
denied adequate living quarters and forced to sleep on the floor in kitchens or
dining rooms. Aside from being offensive, such practices deny them a basic
right to privacy. Other workers have complained of being under-fed, making it
difficult for them to endure the long hours of work imposed on them. As
regards conditions of work and habitation, the situation is generally worse for
manual workers and those employed in petty jobs. While Egyptians or Syrians are
frequently hired in batches, making the social aspect of their work more
bearable, they tend, on average, to live in far more insalubrious conditions at
their place of employment than domestics. Most gas stations or construction
sites, for example, have a small space allocated for workers, who almost always
sleep several to a room and share a single, barely operating bathroom. While
this cannot, strictly speaking, be blamed on the employer, since destitute
workers are happy to be provided with some sort of lodging, the living
conditions are often well below the norms outlined in the International
Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers. Of course,
not all manual employees reside at their workplace. Some may share homes in the
more affordable neighborhoods. Others even manage to rent homes alone for a low
fee. However, these probably make up the minority, given the relatively high
cost of renting apartments in Lebanon. Perhaps the most talked-about forms
of mistreatment - legitimately so - are physical punishment and sexual abuse,
which employees, non-Arab Afro-Asian domestics in particular, are made to
submit to. It should be recalled that a majority of domestic workers are
females, which only increases their vulnerabilities. As shown above in the case
of Hemalatha Mendis, routine beatings, whether by employers or agencies, are a
way of life for some domestics. Rape is also frequent in households. Needless
to say such behavior is illegal according to Lebanese law, and some lawyers
have attempted to take those responsible to court. There have been rare
successes, but most of the time the guilty go unpunished. There are two
primary reasons for this: the first is that the state's security and legal
apparatus, in particular the police, tends not to side with migrant workers in
cases of abuse.[15] More troubling, however, is the second reason: abused
migrant workers are often reluctant to testify against their tormentors. Their
primary motivation appears to be fear - whether of retribution or eventual loss
of employment and, eventually, expulsion. As one harried lawyer put it: "When
it comes time to go to court, they just don't want to face their
employers."[16] One by-product of this situation has been an increase in the
number of illegal workers. That is because many prefer to breach their contract
and work on their own, rather than continue to face abusive treatment in a
household or other place of employment where their rights are routinely
violated.[17] The sex, and even the age, of a migrant worker, will affect
the physical treatment he or she receives. As most manual workers and those
involved in menial jobs are males, the likelihood of their being physically
mistreated or sexually abused - at least the adults among them - is lower than
female domestics. Moreover, the fact that many are illegal anyway gives them,
to a certain extent, the flexibility to easily abandon their job if the
mistreatment becomes too odious. That is because employers can easily rehire a
new worker, usually without a concomitant sense that they have lost an
investment, since there are no hiring or legal fees to pay. Yet mistreatment
can imply many things short of physical abuse. It can mean frequently putting
an employee's life at risk in his job, to simply treating him or her
disrespectfully, which is often inherent in the rigidly hierarchical
relationship between workers on the one hand, and employers or overseers on the
other. How widespread is mistreatment? While no reliable statistics are
available, the anecdotal evidence of mistreatment, particularly regarding
non-Arab Afro-Asian domestics, has given Lebanon a rather excessive reputation
internationally as a bastion of boorishness.[18] As always, it is best to tread
carefully when accepting such sweeping judgments. There most definitely is a
problem with migrant workers. Much work needs to be done to inject the rule of
law, therefore predictability, into the mutual relationship between Lebanese
employers and migrant workers. However, it is fair to say that conditions are
improving, and that a majority of workers live in conditions between the
bearable and the good, even if the more flagrant cases of abuse capture the
headlines. To live in merely bearable conditions is inadequate, even
unacceptable, but it does not imply that a worker is being tortured, as a few
definitely are. The following case study shows the extremes of behavior
vis-à-vis a contractual female migrant worker, and reveals what the real
problem is: namely that the fate of workers is too highly dependent on the
oppression or kindness of employers, and too little on objective judicial
principles which can protect workers against abuse in all circumstances.

Louisa is a Filipino domestic who was raped
by a Lebanese man who was an acquaintance.[19] Her employer, realizing that
Louisa had been raped, began the arduous process of bringing the man to
justice. Shortly after the crime, he called a government-appointed doctor to
examine Louisa and confirm the rape. The medical report was then given to the
police within a 24-hour limit set by Lebanese law, hence avoiding the more
costly procedure of hiring a lawyer. After an unsuccessful effort by Louisa and
the police to find the rapist's home, the employer went out and found it on his
own. The rapist was identified and brought in by the police. Louisa then took
the police to the scene of the crime and described what had happened. She met
with a magistrate who informed her that she had 48 hours to determine whether
he should file charges against the rapist, who faced a five-year prison term.
Louisa remained adamant that he should be punished. It is at that point that
the employer, after intense lobbying from the rapist's family, asked for a
24-hour delay in the magistrate's decision. He persuaded Louisa that a trial
would be costly and stressful, and that it was better to agree to financial
compensation. Eventually, she agreed to $10,000 and dropped the charges.
There are several facets to the incident that are relevant to the next section
in this chapter - on the relationship between migrant workers and the state -
particularly its judicial apparatus. However, the essential feature of the
episode was the intervention of Louisa's employer. His persistence showed how
dependent are migrant workers, particularly women, on such otherwise elusive
values such as the kindness of employers. Moreover, it was the financial
assistance he provided that moved the legal process forward. In a
properly-functioning system, however, Louisa would have been able to navigate
through the legal process independently of her employer in order to right a
wrong. A second aspect of the episode was that it contradicted the facile
belief that Lebanese employers are generally abusive. Perhaps many are, but far
more relevant is the fact that many are not, and yet they will not contemplate
using the judicial system to insure redress for employees who are victims of
abuse outside their place of residence. There is, in many respects, a problem
of perception of the legal system, which is often, legitimately, seen as
favoring Lebanese employers. As we shall see in the next section, this
triangular relationship between migrant workers, employers, and the
judicial-security system is a complex one, and is often a major cause of the
myriad problems faced by migrant workers in Lebanon.